Jeff hung in at the sawmill for eight more months. He bought a milk goat for baby Ola, and Granny Jane tended the children while he worked. He continued to put money by, raising his own food, keeping to himself. Ed Reed recovered, though he lost his ear, and his hair never quite covered over the thick, ropy scar. He apologized to Jeff and to anyone else who would give him a minute or even a few seconds. Jeff gave him only an icy stare in return, and the others learned to avoid him, especially in the evening when he had been able to drink and the whiskey pushed the guilt and grief out of him.

Finally, Reed just disappeared. No one saw him leave, no one knew where he went. He simply wasn't there anymore, and he hadn't been for some time that no one could figure with any precision. But the cabin remained, untouched since Mattie's death. For a while, Jeff seemed to take some comfort in staring at it, as if to stare it down like a bully and kill its power. Then one evening, after supper, not saying anything to anyone, he took a gallon of kerosene over to the cabin and burned the frame to the ground. They all watched it burn in the failing light, Jeff, the three boys, and even Ola May in Granny Jane's arms. And then they watched the embers glow in the darkness. No one said anything. When it was only the smell of smoke, they turned away, went back to their cabin, and slept.

Two weeks later, he gathered them up, put them in the wagon with a hastily built tent on the bed. Before he hitched the team, he went to Mattie's grave and promised her, “I'll come back for you.” They began a ten-year journey from New Mexico to Texas, then Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, back to New Mexico, and then Texas again. Jeff worked whatever job he could find that paid a little money. He was a fine cowboy, but there wasn't enough money in cowboying to keep a family alive. So he worked as a laborer and a hand wherever he could. He was tight with a dollar. One of his friends claimed Jeff squeezed a dollar so hard the eagle farted.